What's the first thing you do before you go to bed, and right as you wake up? If checking your phone comes to mind… keep reading.

The world is not shaming you and neither am I. I am a culprit of the same notion.

However, while “society” has constructed this action into our diets, our nervous systems are deeply, deeply affected by this unnatural digestion.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you look at your phone to set an alarm, no biggie. However, if you’re checking the gram or scrolling through past conversations right before bed, then there are valuable observations to be made.

The reality of the earth body and the reality of a technologically advanced society have started to mend together to create a very complex enigma in our bodies.

No one loves more than a little Instagram pick me up, am I right? You have some down time for lunch and open up the gram to see some extremely beneficial, motivational quotes that may actually change something in you or about your day to remind you that it’s not all that bad. And in this down time, you’re eating your lunch and catching up on all the memes your friends have sent you, totally disconnected from the nourishment of the food your ingesting and the experience of flavor, the texture of chewing, and the satiation of fullness from swallowing your food. You forget to look outside or take in your surroundings and then your break is over and you lock your phone screen feeling a bit more at ease yet also slightly dazed because you could have eaten air and shut off your brain for those 30 minutes but didn’t actually take in anything nourishing.

We fill all of our “down time” with stimulation from the moment our eyes open until the moment they close at night. When is the last time you sat in complete silence with yourself or another and did what society would label as “nothing.” For how long did that last, and how did it make you feel?

Stimulation is good. It’s energy, it’s fluidity, it’s movement, it’s vata, it’s yoga, it’s life, it’s prana, it’s circulation, it’s drive, it’s ambition, it’s change. The key idea here is that the universe, the earth and nature is already stimulating. Now add everything you can experience on your phone at any given moment. If the universe is already busy and stimulating, imagine the overstimulation in the palm of your hands. Have you ever thought of it like this before?

Let’s talk about boredom. What do you think your ancestors were doing when they were bored (if they even got bored)? How does your answer to that differ to your reaction to “boredom?” Do you find yourself bored often even in the company of others? Do you find yourself bored at work, unwilling to make conversations but the stimulation of a 30 second video you could watch on your phone, displacing you from where you are momentarily, feels more enjoyable? Do you find yourself bored at night watching a movie on the couch while on Facetime, responding to multiple conversations with friends via text? Yikes! (Again– I’ve done this, friends)

I’d like to shed some light and gentleness. Recognize that a huge part of that is called conditioning and that part is not your fault or control.

However, there is truth behind our control to increase or limit the amount of excess stimulation that we allow into our lives. This isn’t only through social media, it’s from not allowing ourselves to exist in pure silence due to a TV or music or children or even messages from friends or family at any given moment arriving at your fingertips. It’s the radio, it’s the traffic on our drives to work, it’s advertisements off the highways, it’s commercials, conversations with people, interactions, podcasts, e-books, etc. Conditioning.

Unplug. Put it down. Turn it off. Breathe. Choose your interactions knowing it’s an energetic exchange. Don’t look at more than you need to in a given day. Breathe.

This is a completely subjective topic and each human being will have a different recipe for what they need and how they can leave the rest.

Another key thing that really affects me personally and often is if you’re like me and I follow a wide variety of self-help accounts on instagram, because the reality is I want the extra support, yet the issue is everyone has something different to say. Everyone has a new technique, or more advice on how to help you, or a new angle on this topic that will blow your FREAKIN mind. Okay. While this is the new “norm”– information at our fingertips – it’s actually the opposite of healthy. It’s excess.

After scrolling, 10 minutes of my life has gone by and I’ve digested so much diverse information that is so directionless because it’s been anything from dating advice, to hottest sex tips, to how to care for my hair, to a raccoon zooming around on the floor making engine sounds, to the top 5 foods to eat during my period, to what temperature is best for my cacti to live at, to how I actually should be wearing my fanny pack, to literally a n y t h i n g. Do you catch my drift? It can be dizzying and confusing and it asks us to constantly be a filter for more and more information. AHH!

Believe it or not, it actually translates in your anatomy as more of a depressant than a stimulant and directly triggers the release of addictive hormones in our brains. 100+ likes = dopamine release.

Our bodies were created by God/Devi to live simply and off the land. Yet, our whole lives have adapted to be so immediate and self involved. We’ve lost sight of being in the raw and still moment sharing genuine and open connection to one another. It’s very possible to take in WAY too much information at one time these days.

Have you ever been having a great day, and you look down at your phone and all of a sudden you receive a text from someone anywhere in the world with bad news or an unsolicited nasty text and your entire disposition is changed? That’s overstimulation. What makes this recognizable as overstimulation is that that person isn’t even in the room with you and has affected your entire day. The same thing happens when we invite anything on social media into our sight.

Take a deep breath. Pause. Let it go. Set some healthy boundaries.

Prana (subtle energy) follows attention. Your organs are in deep relationship with your mind, nervous system and daily life. They are not separate. If your attention is centered on a fabricated world of technological addictive pleasure, the nervous system is going to be having some ugly conversations with your mind and organs. This ignorant development of subconscious overwhelm from repetitive addictive behavior to stimulation is a recipe for disaster in neural pathways, immune system and nervous system. I use the term “ignorant,” because some of it is actually your doing, and some of it isn’t.

This is where fear and shame have a field day in your body stirring up a pot of emotions you never even knew you had, and probably aren’t even your emotions to feel. Having access to know what it seems like everyone else is doing in the world is overwhelming. So then, one by one, they show up throughout your day as stress and unrealistic priorities:

I’m not doing enough.

I’m not where I want to be in life.

What I have isn’t good enough.

Everyone else is doing better than me.

I didn’t start my morning off like @stayhealthyfitgirl suggested with her toothpaste rec.

I don’t know what I want.

Maybe I’m not in love with…

I’m falling behind on a diet that actually doesn't fit my lifestyle but I read it was good for me somewhere.

I should have done this/that.

I can’t focus on this book I have a deadline for and I just keep thinking about texting this person about plans for this/that.

Worry.

fear.

Pressure.

I want you to take a deep inhale and say, “I breathe in calm.”

I want you to breathe out and say, “I breath out excess.”

Stimulation feels good, and it’s very normal. However, it should feel just as good, if not better, to do without stimulation.

Stimulation disconnects us from our own intuitive frequency. It disconnects us from our innate connection to our surroundings and signs of the beautiful world we have. It makes us forget all that we actually have and seek to continuously want more. Overstimulation becomes a direct link to never feeling satisfied with what you do have because of the underlying assumptive based behavior that there’s more and others have it better.

Overstimulation even makes us skip the step of enjoying what we’ve been working for and towards.

I wholeheartedly invite you to ration your intake of stimulation today in any way that feels right for you. Perhaps, you might journal about your experience or talk to a friend about it and get them involved, too.

I love you all. I promise the world will have more peace available for you if you disconnect from technology more than from yourself.

Much love,

Xx,

Ray of Light